The first part is here
Currently, the following types of causes of cannibalism are known as a phenomenon in general
1. Cannibalism due to acute hunger, which in modern conditions occurs quite rarely and usually in extreme circumstances, more often in groups cut off from the rest of the world (for example, in the taiga, after a shipwreck, etc.). There are much more cases of cannibalism during mass famine, as happened in the USSR in the early 30s and in Ethiopia in the late 70s - early 80s.
2. Cannibalism, which can be called symbolic, or ritual, and the origins of which lie in ancient times. It was established that primitive man ate other people not only because of hunger and gastronomic impulses, but also in order to acquire strength, intelligence, courage and other important qualities that, as it seemed to him, the victim possessed. Then people believed (modern savages still believe) that the container of these enviable qualities are separate parts of the human body.
Cannibalism was also a part of the primitive religion, for example, the Fijians, who considered the gods to be great hunters of human meat.
The mythological and symbolic aspects of cannibalism seem to be quite complex. M. Eliade notes that at the primitive stage of culture we encounter ritual cannibalism, which is ultimately the spiritually conditioned behavior of a “good” savage. The greatest concern of a cannibal is, in fact, metaphysical - never to forget what happened in "time immemorial." Studies have shown that by killing and eating pigs during celebrations and the first fruits of the root crop, a person, according to M. Eliade, eats divine flesh in the same way as during the cannibals' festivities.
Pig sacrifice, "skull hunt" and cannibalism mean the same thing as harvesting. The edible plant is not provided by nature. It is a product of murder because that is how it was created at the beginning of time. "Skull hunt", human sacrifice, cannibalism - all this was adopted by man to provide life for plants. Cannibalism is a type of behavior characteristic of a given culture and based on a religious vision of the world.
Before condemning cannibalism, we must always remember that it was laid by deities. They laid the foundation for it so that man could take responsibility for space, to put him in the position of caretaker for the continuation of plant life. Consequently, cannibalism had to do with responsibility of a religious nature. *
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These thoughts seem to me more than controversial and, in any case, unproven. It is completely wrong, of course, that the edible plant is not provided by nature, but if there are mythological data about this, the author should have pointed to them. But even if such plants are not provided by nature and they are the product of murder, it is still not clear why one should eat their own kind because of this - this does not follow from the texts of M. Eliade.
It is all the more unclear how cannibalism provides plant life, according to this author. Meanwhile, the research of ethnologists testifies to the fact that human sacrifices for the sake of the harvest or other benefits were sometimes really accompanied by cannibalism.
But, as can be assumed, there is a different meaning and a different mechanism than those analyzed by M. Eliade. Perhaps this is a joint meal with the gods (god), which made them psychologically closer and more accessible, which means that their help in growing plants, multiplying livestock, etc. would be more real. It is possible that by eating people during ritual sacrifices, the ancient man simultaneously satisfied his hunger elementary. This seems to be justified because the need for any sacrifice of the savage would be superfluous if people were not threatened with starvation. Finding food is his most urgent concern.
If the gods, as, for example, among the Fijians, were considered great hunters of human flesh, then cannibalism made it possible to get close enough to them, acquiring new power. The gods were especially active at the beginning of time, and this period is very sacred for primitive man; constantly returning to him, such a person draws his strength from him. For this reason, cannibalism was also quite possible.
At the same time, there is no doubt that cannibalism, as M. Eliade notes, is a type of behavior inherent in a given culture and based on a religious (more precisely, pre-religious) vision of the world. Meanwhile, I would like to clarify that by culture one should understand not only religious, spiritual and moral development, but also the state of the productive forces.
One should not think that such wild ideas were and still are only among primitive peoples. The fact is that such views persist in universal unrecognizable memory and, through the mechanisms of the collective unconscious (the corresponding theory was created by C. G. Jung), return to people who live not only in the so-called third world countries, but also in quite civilized ones. This is convinced by the analysis of criminal cases of serial sexual murders.
It allows us to conclude that these ideas continue to live even now among those who did not know about the importance of cannibalism in ancient times and therefore did not evaluate the corresponding acts in a similar quality. Sexual killer Chikatilo bit off and ate the nipples and uterus of the murdered women, that is, those parts of the body that are associated with sex life. This can be interpreted as an attempt to symbolically master the woman, since he, being impotent, could not do it in reality.
The same criminal ate the tips of the tongues and testicles of boys, which can be explained by his desire to take from them male sexual power, which he, impotent, did not have. Such symbolic cannibalistic actions can be observed in some other sexual killers, including Dzhumagaliev, who, in his own words, the eaten female body endowed with the gift of prophecy and led to the strengthening of "an independent train of thought." In other words, he allegedly acquired qualities that he had previously been deprived of.
3. Symbolic cannibalism is closely intertwined with that kind of this phenomenon as a whole, which can be called ritual, when a person is sacrificed to a deity or some secret powerful forces in order to propitiate them, gain the desired benefits, but at the same time some parts of the body are eaten by the killers themselves to master the qualities and abilities of the eaten. Since the savage gave part of the victim's body to the deity, and absorbed the other himself, he, as already noted above, thereby created a common meal with the deity, that is, psychologically approached him as close as possible, and this promised him great benefits.
It seems that the presence of ritual motivation among modern cannibals should by no means be ignored. The fact is that in our country, unfortunately, the most barbaric beliefs that have nothing to do with civilized religion have become dangerous. Therefore, cannibalism on such mystical grounds is by no means excluded. The fascination of persons suspected of corresponding crimes with ancient secret teachings can serve as a sign indicating the presence of the named motive.
Let me remind you that Dzhumagaliev was very interested in the sacrifices of animals and people. His intention to grease the murdered woman on the grave of his grandfather can be regarded as an attempt at sacrifice, but this is not yet an act of cannibalism, which interests us in the first place, especially since the sacrifice was made not to God, but to his grandfather.
4. Cannibalism of persons who kill and eat other people, treat acquaintances with human meat or sell it, but their actions do not reveal the motives characteristic of cannibals from the first three groups. It seems that cannibalism of representatives of this type is generated by the unconscious feeling of oneself as a biological being that does not belong to the human race, is completely outside this genus, is not associated with it either socially, psychologically, biologically, or even more so morally. Acts of cannibalism can be accompanied by erotic, sadistic or mystical fantasies, which can be observed in representatives of the first three groups.
Among this group of cannibals, one can single out those who, by eating other people, assert themselves in the eyes of a small antisocial group, showing themselves to be superhuman. Cannibalism can also act as a way of self-assertion, when a person seeks to prove to himself that he is able to overcome all prohibitions and norms, acting only as he wishes.
5. In ancient times, at the stage of transition from animals to humans, cannibalism was generally widespread, and the human body was eaten like animals and plants. This was the wildest era, when man had not yet completely distinguished himself from the animal world, and even more so from among his own kind, which, apparently, remained for a long time among the most archaic tribes. Many primitive people even believed that individual animals are not only superior to them in their physical strength, but also smarter, more cunning, more resourceful than them. I think that not separating oneself from the animal world, not feeling oneself as a person, especially as an autonomous one, is the main reason for cannibalism in the so-called prehistoric times.
The eternal modern myth about the lost paradise, about the noble savage, the most beautiful land and magnificent landscapes, the ideal state (for example, the pre-Columbian era), etc. completely ignores the fact that all these allegedly existing "goods" and "beauties" in almost all cases were in significant numbers associated with cannibals and cannibalism. But the fact is that the savage cannibals, in turn, have their own ideas about the lost paradise, about the initial immense happiness, when a person was immortal and directly communicated with God (gods), he did not need to work, because his "simple" fed by nature or fabulous agricultural implements that worked like automatic machines.
It would seem that one might think that his idleness in those blissful times was also expressed in the fact that he did not grow cereals, did not hunt and did not raise livestock: it was enough for him to go to war against another tribe or capture a gaping neighbor in order to provide himself an excellent dinner or dinner.
In any case, despite all its disgust and danger, cannibalism is deeply rooted in human consciousness, and although civilization has achieved undoubted successes since its wide spread, it re-manifests itself from time to time and in various forms. But, of course, one should not exaggerate the scale of this phenomenon and associate it only with difficult socio-economic phenomena or a decline in morality.
This would be primitivization: as shown above, the causes and mechanisms of the phenomenon under consideration are rather complex and ambiguous. However, the occasional individual acts of cannibalism produce a deafening impression, and those people who directly encounter them usually come into shock.
It can be assumed that cannibalism, but in a completely different form (it can be called psychological), was adopted by Christianity. Thus, during the Last Supper, Christ established the sacrament of the Eucharist, or communion, as a grace-filled means of uniting believers with Christ - communion of His body and blood as a true lamb. During the supper “Jesus took the bread and, having blessed it, broke it and, distributing it to the disciples, said: take, eat: this is my body. And taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them and said: Drink of it, all of you, for this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins”(Gospel of Matthew 26: 26-28). Of course, the communion of His body and blood, despite all the differences in the understanding of the Eucharist by different branches of Christianity, is always symbolic.
Another, no less serious, hypothesis is the assumption that the sacrament of the Eucharist is a relic of the ancient totemic custom of god-eating (geophagy), in which the participants in the mysteries ate the meat of a sacred animal and drank its blood. Later, images of animals and gods were used for such sacrifices. J. J. Frazer noted that “the custom of killing God in the person of an animal originated at a very early stage in human culture. Tearing apart and devouring alive, for example, bulls and calves, was, apparently, a personal feature of the Dionysian cult. If we take into account the custom of depicting God in the form of a bull and, in general, give him features of similarity to this animal, the belief that in the form of a bull he appeared before the believers at sacred rites, as well as the legend that he was torn to pieces in the guise bull, then we will have to admit that, tearing apart and devouring the bull at the festival of Dionysus, the cult participants believed that they were killing God, eating his flesh and drinking his blood”*. J. J. Frazer gives numerous examples of god eating from the life of primitive tribes.
The killing of the representative of God (according to J. J. Frazer) left a noticeable mark, for example, in the Kondon sacrificial rites. Thus, the ashes of the slaughtered Maria were scattered over the fields; the blood of a young brahmana sprinkled crops and fields; the flesh of the slain naga was stored in grain bins; the blood of the Sioux girls irrigated the seeds. The identification of the sacrifice with bread, that is, the idea of it as the embodiment or spirit of bread, makes itself felt under the conditions that were applied to establish a physical correspondence between the spirit and the natural object serving as its embodiment or representative. The Mexicans, for example, sacrificed children to young shoots, and the elderly to ripe ears.
So, there are two versions of the origin of the Eucharist, which, as I suggested above, is generated at the symbolic level by cannibalism. Which of them is more true, or both are true and do not contradict each other, was not “simple” cannibalism preceded by the Eucharist, that is, the anthropophagy of theophagy? It is possible that in different parts of the world life itself solved this issue in different ways, but, most likely, the first preceded the second, but not vice versa, or they existed simultaneously, which is most likely.
Let's go back to criminal cannibalism.
Dzhumagaliev's cannibalistic actions could in no way be dictated by hunger or the desire to establish himself as a superman in someone's eyes or in his own. He resorted to cannibalism in order, in his own words, to acquire certain and very necessary qualities in this way, that is, he followed his long-gone ancestors in this - I mean the mechanisms of the collective unconscious. It seems, however, that not only this motivated the behavior of this cannibal, but more his unconscious desire as a whole and completely return to wild antiquity. That is why he lived in caves for a long time, in other words, practically led the existence that the first people on Earth had.
An overvalued attitude towards animals can also be regarded as an attempt to return to the animal world, but on a psychological level. There is reason to assume that schizophrenia has become the mechanism that has contributed to the creation of the necessary prerequisites for the formation and implementation of all these trends.
In other words, schizophrenia created some internal conditions for the formation and manifestation of cannibal tendencies in this person, but in itself in no way can it be considered as a cause or source of such actions. Schizophrenia is only a medical diagnosis, not a complete explanation of socially dangerous behavior.
We can talk about the presence of various degrees and forms of cannibalism. Kirsanin, for example, having killed I. in some way in 1944, immediately after the murder began, according to the testimony of witnesses, to drink his blood from a wound on his neck. When the strangers dispersed, he removed the skin from the face, head and neck, from the mouth and nasopharynx with the handle of a shovel. Not once after the arrest, not later, including in a conversation with me, Kirsanin could not explain why he did all this: “He did everything as if in a dream, something guided me, did everything mechanically; I didn't want to, but my hands were doing it, my head went dark. Then I buried this skin, where - I don't remember.
He worked as a meat binder at a meat processing plant, became addicted to the blood of slaughtered animals, and found satisfaction in this. After being fired from the meat-packing plant, in the absence of blood, he began to kill dogs and drink their blood. Drank and human donated blood. He says that "if need be, I will crush even more."
The foregoing suggests that Kirsanin is a dangerous cannibal personality with vampiric tendencies. He weakly controls his desires and needs, the implementation of which is not mediated by social, moral norms. Characteristically, he does not remember well what he was doing, everything happened as if in a fog, in a dream, what moved him, he does not know.
Investigators have not obtained irrefutable evidence that Kirsanin ate the victim's body parts, but some circumstances suggest that this is exactly what he did. First of all, it remains unclear why he removed his skin, and cannibalism seems to us a more likely assumption. The victim's skin was never found, and the culprit himself could not explain where he was doing it. The fact that he drank animal blood prepared him psychologically for cannibalism.
Yu. Zh. Antonyan from the book "The History of Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice"